Operated by Merit Network, Inc a non-profit corporation owned by 12 of MI 4-year public universities. In addition to the twelve members there are 427 affiliates with a combined total of 551 direct network attachments from 223 separate locations

The Library of Michigan is the official state library agency. In October 2001, the Library became part of the Michigan Department of History, Arts and Libraries (HAL).

In November 2005, Governor Jennifer Granholm appointed Nancy R. Robertson as State Librarian. Ms. Robertson had worked at the State Library since 1995. Ms Robertson served as acting state librarian, deputy state librarian for internal operations, and the curator and rare book librarian.

The Governor, in consultation with the Library of Michigan Board of Trustees, appoints the state librarian, who is charged with the care of all administrative functions of the Library.

The Governor appoints the members of State Library Board of Trustees who represent libraries and users. Members from the legislative and judicial branches are appointed by that body.

Created by statute and administered by the Library of Michigan, these libraries have separate boards and services. All public libraries meeting certain requirement are eligible to be members in the cooperative library. Funding comes from the state and from participating libraries. Cooperative libraries must consist of one of the following:
a) Two or more counties with a total population of at least 100,000
b) One county plus portions of other counties with a population of at least 100,000
c) One county or portion of the county with a population of at least 400,000
d) Portions of 2 or more counties with a population of at least 350,000
e) Combinations of counties or portions of counties serving a population of at least 50,000, if the region served has a population of 35 or fewer persons per square mile.

In September 2006, The Library Network (TLN), the public library cooperative serving 65 libraries in southeast Michigan, announced a new optical and data networking services contract with ATT. Under the terms of the three-year contract, AT&T will deliver AT&T OPT-E-MAN® and AT&T network-based virtual private network (VPN).

Elwood J. Downing. Merit Network, Member Services Manager, noted that the following library cooperatives have made great progress in providing high-speed broadband to their member libraries, particularly in rural areas. Mr. Downing recommends that the team talk to these directors.

Superiorland Library Cooperative is located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Many of the member libraries are in rural areas.

4) Valley Library Consortium, Karl Steiner, Director (contact information below). Merit is currently building fiber into the "the last mile."

5) Chippewa River District Library. This is a district library, not a cooperative, but Mr. Downing suggests that the team contact Mr. Mitchell as this rural library is engineering solutions to provide high-speed access.

The Library of Michigan contracts with the Michigan Library Consortium and collaborates with a number of Michigan organizations and institutions to provide the MeL service. This service is funded in part by the State of Michigan and additional support from LSTA. The cost of MeL is approximately $3.5 million per year.

MeL grew from the combination of several statewide projects. The original projects were the Michigan Electronic Library, a collection of Internet resources selected by librarians and AccessMichigan, a project to provide licensed commercial databases to Michigan's libraries. MeLCat, a statewide resource-sharing project, was begun in 2005.

MeL.org earned top ranking in the "government-to-citizen" category as part of the Center's annual "Best of the Web" and Digital Government Achievement Awards competition.

In 2002, Michigan's legislature created the first Broadband Development Authority in the United States. The agency facilitates broadband expansion for the benefit of all people of the state. The Authority is an independent state government agency, authorized to issue investment grade, taxable and tax-exempt bonds, the proceeds of which can be used to provide financing assistance.

The MBDA was created to help Michigan attract more private sector investment in high-speed Internet infrastructure, and to increase demand for and utilization of broadband services. It does so by offering low-cost loans to telecommunications companies willing to make such investments and by offering organizations low-cost financing for the acquisition of hardware/software applications that will improve or increase their use of broadband service.

MBDA loans have expanded service into locations where few if any other broadband services existed and in markets where there was typically only one dominant carrier. In the latter markets, the MBDA has seen prices drop dramatically because of the competitive pressure created by its loans and the resulting expansion of broadband services. ACD.net, for example, has used MBDA loans to expand services in several suburban communities outside major metropolitan areas. In each instance, the incumbent carriers have matched or reduced pricing and have expanded their investments in those same areas. Quantifying the overall impact of this “multiplier” investment is difficult, but it is significant.

Beyond lending, the MBDA has communicated and advocated for the need for expanding the availability of high-speed Internet services. It has championed the need for communities to have wireless/mobile options in addition to traditional broadband services.

On December 21, 2006, Governor Granholm signed legislation to change video service in the state of Michigan. This legislation is known as Public Act 480, or more commonly known as the “Uniform Video Services Local Franchise Act”. 2006 PA 480 creates a uniformed franchise agreement that is to be used between each franchising entity and video provider in the state of Michigan. The Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) has been the designated agency to implement the Act.

MLC is Michigan’s OCLC regional service center. It is a non-profit membership organization comprised of all types of Michigan libraries. MLC provides libraries a convenient, single point of contact for training, group purchasing and technical support for electronic resources.

Merit Network is a non-profit corporation owned by 12 of Michigan's four-year public universities. Merit also offers services to higher education, K12, library, government and non-profit organizations in Michigan. Known as Affiliate Members, these organizations fully participate in the Merit community and elect representatives to the Merit Advisory Council. In addition to the twelve members, Merit has over 250 Affiliate Members with over 440 direct network attachments.

Merit network is based on a 10 Gbps core fiber network and including connections to four Tier 1 service providers and over 20 non-transit peers. Merit is Michigan's Giga-pop with redundant connections to the commodity Internet as well as at major backbone nodes. Reliability is provided 24x7-365 days (including holidays) by Network Operations Center. Merit Network is also the Internet2 connector for educational, including libraries, in the state of Michigan.

Merit and Public Libraries. Public libraries can join through the Affiliate Member program, which started in 1992. Services include:

Internet2. Merit was one of the first state education networks to receive designation as an Internet2 Sponsored Educational Group Participant (SEGP). Through this program, Merit serves as a conduit to Internet2's many working groups and initiatives for Michigan institutions. While several Michigan universities are Internet2 members, Merit provides access to nearly 45 other institutions via the SEGP program.

High-volume bandwidth. Merit provides each Affiliate Member with a direct "pipe" to peers, Internet2, and multiple commodity Internet links.

Collaboration. Merit staff members facilitate collaborations among Affiliate Members and Members.

WAN Management. Merit provides a fully managed WAN service for a number of school districts and library systems. Merit supports WAN to the same standards as a backbone.

E-Rate. Merit is an authorized E-Rate Eligible Service Provider, with streamlined processes for E-Rate discounts. Discounts from 7/1/2006 through 6/30/07, for Merit Library Affiliate Members participating in Internet Access E-rate funding are:

</strong>Affiliate Member relationships</strong>. Merit provides a way for libraries to be involved in the governance of Merit through the Merit Advisory Council (MAC) members. The chair and co-chair of the MAC attend the Merit Board Meetings to bring Affiliate concerns and technology needs to the attention of the Merit Board.

Support. Affiliate Members have direct access to a highly trained team of professionals to provide support and assistance to the Library community.
Merit has a Library Outreach Coordinator who focuses primarily on the needs of the Michigan Library community. In addition, the Support Team facilitates services for Security Consulting for network design and preventive network attack analysis, MeritMail, streaming media, video Bridging, co-location service, and Web contingency services.

Merit and Filtering. Merit does not provide content filtering to members. Merit provides SPAM and Virus protection services as part of Merit's e-mail service offering.
For the July 1, 2006 through June 30, 2007 USF funding year, Merit had 19 library entities participate in E-Rate funding. These applicants represent 86 libraries.

Merit Affiliate Committee Library Representatives

Travis Busslertbussler@crdl.orgPhone: 989.773.3242

Chippewa River District LibraryNetwork Administrator

2007

Roger Mendelrmendel@flint.orgPhone: (810) 232-7119

Mideastern Library CooperativeDirector

2008

Karl Steinerksteiner@vlc.lib.mi.usPhone: (989) 497-0925

Valley Library ConsortiumDirector

2009

Other MERIT Information:

• As of July 2007, the Detroit Library will no longer be a member of Merit. The library signed a contract for full telecommunications service with ATT.
• In some locales, Merit will build and own lines using dark fiber. Merit builds in anticipation of future needs and cooperates with community partners to design the best connectivity solutions.
• According to Mr. Downing, the non-member library cooperatives may choose not to belong to Merit because of their rural locations and the costs for Merit membership may be higher than those of local ISPs

Merit Costs. Costs vary depending on the location of the library, what incumbent telecommunication provider is in the area (Verizon and ATT). In most ATT areas Merit can use a CLEC provider, which is a telecommunications provider company that competes with other, already established carriers (generally the incumbent local exchange carrier provider), which reduces the access circuit cost for each of the libraries.

Using the following assumptions, the costs for 1.5, 6.0M, or 10M are estimated below: